Clutch of fate
by Iccirrion
Summary: The Seraphim have been defeated and a medium of peace has been restored in the galaxy, but nothing good ever lasts, and as the land bridge known as Seton's clutch is again gripped by war events unfold that will scar the face of the galaxy itself. [Constructive criticism is much appreciated. Rated T for Violence and mild Language.]
1. Prolouge

*For those of you who play Supreme Commander: Some of the units named here are from the Blackops: unleashed mod and credit goes to the creators of the mods for the design of those units.

* * *

Trisha stared for a long time at the glass bowl on the pedestal in front of her, her face staring back at her from the reflective surface of the liquid that filled the container. Slowly she raised a hand and dipped her fingertips into the bowl, leaving them with a fine metal coating. She lifted her dry hand and brushed away some stray hairs that had fallen over her eyes. When her face was clear her wet hand slid over her forehead, leaving it with a glistening coat of silver water. She positioned her hand in front of her face; fingers out stretched, and a blue glow shone out from her palms onto her face. The liquid slowly started to move, as if it were alive, over her face and round the back of her head. Once the liquid had covered her entire head it solidified into a white, full face helmet with a green trim along either side.

'_Seranium is such a strange element.' _Thought Trisha as she stepped away from the bowl towards the rim of the stadium.

From looking at her, Trisha looked like an average woman in her mid-twenties, the sort you'd see out looking at clothes and such. But support-commander Trisha Collasa was anything but average, the only girl to graduate with a distinction in tactical warfare from the Marxon academy and one of the few loyalist commanders who survived both the infinite war and the Seraphim massacres. She had even supported commander Rhiza when she rescued Princess Burke from Blue sky. And she was still fighting.

The infinite war didn't end when the Seraphim invaded, Viruses planted by QAI still held sway over many Cybran commanders, the Order of the Illuminate had found new leadership and sought to reopen the quantum rift and many 'true blue' UEF commanders had sided with the late Commander Fletcher and still sought to exterminate all Aeon and Symbionts.

Which was why Trisha was now standing on a diving board above a pool of Seranium in a skin-tight combat suit. A 'QAIbran' (so they had been nicknamed) had been sighted at the battlefield code-named 'Seton's clutch', negotiations had failed and commander 'Avatar' had proceeded to destroy the civilian centres in the surrounding area. The 'Free Cybran Nation', a group of Cybrans who, while they weren't aggressive towards the coalition, didn't trust the UEF after the Loyalty program incident, had already sent two of their own commanders to try and save Symbiont lives and the three commanders were battling in the ruins of the town of Karel.

Trisha's goal was to assist the Coalition commander Becharan, a fellow Aeon, liberate the planet and eliminate 'Avatar', and if necessary, commanders 'Foe-hammer' and 'Unfather'.

Slowly Trisha stepped towards the edge of the board and looked down at the liquid, she had done this hundreds of times before, thousands if you counted simulations, but today the pool reflected a deep sense of foreboding that etched its way into her soul.

Pushing down the feelings she took a few steps back before running to the edge of the board and swan diving into the metallic surface of the pool. The presence of the liquid comforted her as she sent impulses from her brain into the pads on her gloves. A blue glow lit up the pool and the Seranium started shifting around her, forming a canon over her right arm, armored plates on her chest and legs.

After a few seconds a giant metal machine rose up from the pool, its glistening white body trimmed with a vibrant green that matched Trisha's helmet. Trisha herself stood on a platform in the chest cavity of the machine and every movement she made, the machine copied perfectly, after quickly checking everything was in working order she walked out of the pool and along an outdoor pathway leading to a Portal class quantum gateway. Crowds lined to the path to watch the giant machine go past and to cheer on their champion. Among the crowds Trisha noticed a small girl standing alone looking up at her. Trisha paused and looked back at the girl before kneeling down and extending her left arm until it was almost touching the child. A few drops of Seranium flew from the arm of the sACU and onto the ground in front of the girl, using the quantum interface in the units left arm, Trisha manipulated the liquid until it formed a small doll. Giving the child a small nod, Trisha stood and continued down the pathway and through the gateway...


	2. Chapter 1: Preparation Invasion

Trisha stepped out of the Portal into a grassy field; she could see white peaked mountains not too far in front of her and smaller mountains scattered around the area. All in all a beautiful place, as of yet, untouched by mankind.

"Support-Commander Collasa?" came a voice through her command unit's comm. systems. Turning right she saw a Supreme Command unit, the titan of a machine was even larger than the sACU and the designs carved into the armour plating of it put even the great artists of the aeon to shame. A glimmering shield clung to the ACU like clingfilm, creating an impenetrable barrier and the dual Miasma class artillery mounted on the shoulders of the chassis showed that it was just as good as dealing damage as it was at taking it.

"Affirmative, Crusader Becharan." She replied, "All unit systems are fully operational, ready to receive orders."

"Before you move out we're installing the enhanced fabricator addition into your unit, begin the process." Nodding, she deactivated the sACU's advanced movement systems and pulled a holographic panel from her left, quickly locating the blue-print, she activated the upgrade process. Almost instantly a beam shot from Becharan's unit, aiding the construction of the complicated piece of equipment. Looking down at the claw like left arm of her command unit she watched as liquid seranium, appeared out the gaps in the metal like sweat out of a sprinter's pores. It glided over the metal constructs limb. Blue light surrounded the sACU as it began the process of moulding the metal to the desired form, creating a device that was both beautiful and practical. The whole process only took about 30 seconds before the installation had completed and she was instructed to move north and build a forward base at the beginning of a land bridge.

"Just be careful." Warned Becharan, "Our opponent is quite the coward, he's likely to strike with artillery and TMs."

"I'll keep that in mind," she answered, "Can you send me his profile." A few seconds passed before Becharan answered.

"On its way." He didn't even have time to finish the short sentence before the profile appeared on Trisha's screen.

She quickly thanked him before commanding her unit to start building Transcenders and Aria defence systems. The ETA flashed up in the corner of the screen: 7:20, enough time to browse through her opponents personality files.

_Cameron 'Avatar' Vidad_

_Date of Birth: Unknown_

_Place of Birth: Unknown_

_Gender: Male_

Trisha decided to skip through all the basic stuff; she didn't really care who his parents were or where he spent his childhood.

_Combat review: Cameron has a very silent nature, and through his life has neglected most forms of social interaction, this reflects in his preferences in combat. He doesn't often engage personally in battle, relying on long range artillery and tactical missiles…_

She quickly read through the rest of the profile but nothing stood out, it was essentially repeating the fact that she had to watch out for artillery and missiles.

Her console beeped, notifying her that construction had finished. She programmed in the console to begin construction on several mass extractors to be followed by several Radiance class shield generators and then onto a Patron SMD. While the sACU's automated systems began construction on the various buildings Trisha looked around at the terrain surrounding her; to her south the slight cliffs sunk into the ground revealing a golden beach where azure waters lapped at the beautiful shore. To her north-west an awe-inspiring mountain loomed over the battlefield, its snow-capped peak glistening in the mid-morning sun (Part of her mind recognised the strategic value of such a location and made an internal memo to scout it for a spying post). But the largest and most obvious feature of her location was the great land bridge that stretched out to the north-east, connecting to continents with a thin strip of rock and soil.

A short burst of static came through the comms before an unrecognised voice came in through the speakers, "Support commander Karil, reporting." _'A second support commander?' _Trisha thought to herself. _'This 'avatar' person must be more deadly than his file makes him out to be.' _

"We don't have the time to fit you out with the enhanced fabricator; you'll have to make do with the standard equipment. I've designated a location for your base at the base of the mountain to our north." Becharan's voice came through on the speaker, Trisha felt a slight sting of annoyance towards Becharan, she had already designed a basic plan for a mountain base. "Once you have adequate defences and resources I need you to construct a land assault force." Karil's response to his orders was a simple nod before his sACU began moving north.

* * *

_Trisha gazed across the endless, red fields of mars' arid ground. Above her head she could see Earth, and the explosions that threatened to crack the planet in two. She tried to make sense of the buzz of voices over the comms but soon gave up and tried the channels reserved for commanders, then localised the channel to only pick up signals coming from Earth. _'Just what is going on up there?'_ Suddenly a voice burst through the static in her comms. _

"_Black Sun is down, the whole facility's been compromised." A female voice shouted in Trisha's ear. _

"_You think I hadn't noticed, Clarke? We've got to fall back to Fort Gold." A male voice this time, one that Trisha recognised, she just couldn't remember where she knew it from._

"_Africa? What do they want us there for; Fort Gold is a dust bowl." _ _Africa? Trisha desperately tried to remember the geography lessons from years ago, if only she had spent more time revising about the home planet._

"_It's also the evacuation point for the planet, we've got seven billion people to evacuate and with an attack force like that we don't have long to do it." Trisha found this news disturbing, it had been 500 years since all three factions in the war had agreed to never fire deliberately on civilians. And what sort of strike force had been sent in if it was strong enough to conquer the entire UEF base of operations. _

"_We're leaving Earth so those…those…things can destroy it?!" There was a rising tone of anger in the woman's ('_Clarke did the other one call her?'_) voice._

"_It's all we can do to make it out alive; we're falling back to Fort Gold and joining with the other commanders." Trisha wasn't sure what she was listening to but it didn't make any sense, Neither the Princess nor Brackman would do something as drastic as killing off everyone on Earth, so just what was going on?_

"_Other commanders? How many are there, I thought it was just you, me and the new guy." Clarke's voice questioned impatiently._

"_900." Said the man matter-of-factly. An awkward silence followed that sentence as both Trisha and Clarke tried to make sense of what he had just said._

"_900?" Trisha whispered into her mic, forgetting that she was in a UEF channel._

"_Aeon!?" Clarke shouted. "How did she get into our system!?" Trisha was surprised that she was recognised as Aeon from just her voice._

"_They're with us now, whatever it was that came through the rift is too powerful for just one of us to fend it off, especially in the condition we're in now." This came as a surprise to both commanders. "All commanders on Earth are headed for Fort Gold to build a defensive line while civilians are evacuated. Aeon, what's your location?"_

_It took Trisha a moment to realise it was her being addressed. "Mars, Outpost 5-3. What exactly is going on up there?"_

"_You haven't been told?" The male sighed, "The UEF almost succeeded in firing Black Sun, but it didn't work as we planned, we underestimated its power. A rift was opened to the Quantum realm and we have multiple aircraft coming through. They're equivalent to one of your CZARs in firepower. We originally thought that they were Aeon but we gave that idea up soon after your Commander Rhiza's base was bombed."_

_A bolt of fear struck Trisha, "Rhiza's dead?" she choked into the mic._

"_Luckily, no. She's organising the Aeon retaliation in Africa, if it weren't for her, Earth would probably be overrun by now."_

_Trisha let out a sigh of relief before realising that she also had a job to do, "What do you need from me?"_

"_Begin the evacuation on Mars, several spacecraft have already come thorough the rift and are on their way, but if you get moving quickly enough you'll be able to evacuate before they arrive."_

"_On it!"_

* * *

"Commander Collasa?!" she heard a voice shout into her ear. "Respond, a large Cybran force is headed your way!" She shook her head and looked about her surroundings. "Commander Collasa?" it was Becharan's voice she heard.

"Sorry Commander, Defences are in place, I should be able to hold them off." She spoke into the mic, remembering the situation.

Becharan sighed, "What happened?" He asked.

"Nothing important." She replied, the image of Earth burning still imprinted on her mind.

"If it's affecting your performance it's important, there are lives a stake here." Becharan retaliated in his quiet tone. Trisha waited for several seconds before answering.

"The silent rain."


End file.
